Caped wonders with super powers have been created throughout history during times when people were in dire need of "heroes". They could fly or do a Houdini from the arch-rival's snare. But, these heroes stay on the comic book (or the silver screen). Hence, we in the real world face challenges ourselves--sans super powers. Whether it's families breaking apart or declining literacy in the country, it is we who answer the call from where we are, with what we have.

Monday, November 21, 2005

We'll all be old and gray one day

There's been more talk than usual lately about the issue of health care for the elderly, euthanasia and assisted suicide. Regardless of your stand on these issues, I tend to think that all these discussions on blogs, websites, medical institutions, congressional hearings are something positive. Through them, the different angles pertaining to the matter are threshed out; various experiences also come out, bringing to the fore just how some members of society are coming to regard old people.

MercatorNet has a great article that partly delves on the matter. An excerpt:

[Taking Care: Ethical Caregiving in our Aging Society] says it is necessary to steer between two rocks: "We need to prevent the worst kinds of betrayal and inhumanity towards the dependent elderly – such as relying on institutions that 'warehouse' elderly persons," promoting assisted suicide and embracing euthanasia.

But we must also "avert the danger of inter-generational conflict over scarce resources, meeting our obligations also to our children and grandchildren, sustaining other social goods, and avoiding a major new drag on the economy that would (among other things) weaken the economic capacity of working families to provide care for their loved ones".

Put positively, this means "we need to encourage families and local communities to become responsible caregivers and to sustain one another in giving care, while recognising the role of the state in providing a safety net of decent care for those who lack adequate economic resources or a network of family support".

And WorldNetDaily came out with this one, about the experience of a young woman whose father recently died in a nursing home under the care of what she deemed as pro-death caregivers. An excerpt:

"One thing that has shocked me throughout this ordeal is the number of health-care 'professionals' that seem to major on killing rather than healing," Deanna Potter told WND. "It's truly frightening to think that these are people charged with overseeing health care for very old and very sick human beings."